The Velocity Of Gary

Yes, to write even on the dirty page, the page besmirched with prints of black and darker black, fingerprints and newsprint and my hoped for dreams finally more than a vision, my fantasies taking center stage and people around me, through telephone wires, saying yes, yes, yes!

And that is exactly it, is it not, dr. k? That is exactly what nourishing connections teaches us. Hard solid sturdy food—fiber and chicken and potatoes and fruits and vegetables, they fill us up because they are hardy sturdy stick to your ribs—like Vincent’s touch. For some reaso
I was not excited by Brokeback Mountain; quite honestly, after the comic strip and Riley and Huey and Grandfather’s take on it I knew I’d never be able to sit through the film with a straight face: I’d be thinking about Grandfather and his friend going to see a good ole cowboy movie and—oh, I’d be in the center aisle thinking of MacGruder’s strip and laughing my head off.

I do not laugh at The Velocity of Gary—I am moved touched disturbed by the film. Vincent’s talents ignored again, savagely. I know Velocity was long before Brokeback and has to be a much more stirring, startling, and necessary story. How many times have I looked at a prostitute when I knew exactly what I was seeing and did not want to see, to touch, to know? For all the sympathetic, think we understand short stories and teleplays about ‘hos, no one gives them honor as does dan ireland’s film. What I find fascinating is Vincent’s emergence from that into Law & Order: Criminal Intent. My God, Goren must be a perpetual straight jacket for him. He must be going fucking nuts.

A man who risks Thumbsucker and Velocity could never be happy, permanently, with a Goren role in perpetuity. Uncomfortable long term as butt sweat or that special chafing fat women get only in the summer. Yet Vincent risks it—he makes a real bisexual romance—a real story of sex workers, transvestites and their lovers—my hopes for Hollywood somewhat Kid Joey’s—but like Kid Joey I have enough sense to take my ass to New York, not Tinseltown. I watch The Velocity of Gary and no, it is not Valentino’s (D’Onofrio’s character) story, yet he is its raison d’etre. My week of big blond oafs. Peter Weir Gerard Depardieu African music aboriginal flavoring and Green Card another essay. Enough to say that the filmmaking careful there. Andie MacDowell expert at playing the repressed proper privileged well brought up guerrilla gardener dilettante who wouldn’t know what to do with a real penis between her legs. Gerard as the Frenchman composer unafraid and unembarrassed to admit he is an oaf, but hurt by the epithet just the same. His snort like a pig too effectual, too accurate, and one of the things “Bronte” (MacDowell’s character) comes to love about him.

License. It is license, you see, that was lacking. License to tell the real story of bisexual New York sex workers dying of AIDS. Every time he coughed I thought consumption, asthma, until they just had to keep knocking my head against it and I had to say AIDS. Velocity of Gary brave to make me see them, love them, care about them. The overweight Black nurse and the tattoo artist the only two to truly see them and risk loving them in all their foolish, desperate choices. The Dracula overlay heartbreaking; his little girl the castle, all that is left standing at the end.

But a family created: a street hustler, an HIV positive former doughnut hostess, the baby of a dead porn star; she, the last, named Hope. What other option for a mother brave enough to love a man whom she must share with a man and Vincent’s character brilliant enough to see the storm coming and make himself large enough, powerful enough to love them both, insist that they make nice.

Uncomfortable as they made me my best scenes, my favorite scenes, Vincent kissing and being kissed by Gary. Sensual power rating: 563,000. Kinetic sexuality rating: 729,000. Portrayal of real love, naked honest lust on screen: numberless. dan ireland and his star risked making those love scenes the most sensual, the most powerful, the biggest turn on. The way V’s character lays his head back and lets Gary kiss his face—I’ve never see
V that tender with a woman.

And why do I write all of this to you, dr. k? dr. k of healthy wholesome nourishing connections? because we too are outlaws, dr.k; we too are bandits, complete with mask and black hat. you stand before the massive, trillion dollar diet self help twelve step industry and say, feed yourself and your body will tell you what to feed yourself. Cassendre Xavier’s Pink Ediccione confirms that. I for the first time sit and watch a film bare-breasted, water cracker crumbs dusting my breasts from the peanut butter and crackers I nibbled as the film began. Soon the intensity took over and yes, dr. k, I was thinking about freedom, liberation, license. I will feed my body, my consciousness, what it asks for and find that way to health.

And I will watch The Velocity of Gary one more time, perhaps this time totally naked because what comes next for me, dr. k, what comes after giving my body what my consciousness wants is giving my consciousness a healthy, happy, sensual relationship with my own body.nn###
Copyright August 2007n